Realizations
by night.nerd
Summary: After months of uncertainty, Leo Fitz had awoken from his coma while Jemma Simmons was in the midst of coping with his loss and some other mistakes she had made. Her thoughts are jumbled and conflicting, so she takes a few moments to sit down and sift through them all. [Day 5 of 23 of my Fitzsimmons Six-Word Story Countdown]


**Author's Note: **Once again, something from my roleplaying has traveled over to my fanfiction... anyways, this is a self-para I had written for Simmons in one of the many groups I am in. There are some things that technically would take place after the finale that occurred within the roleplay that are mentioned, but they are all explained beforehand. Anyways, this is day five of twenty-three for my Six-Word Fitzsimmons Countdown challenge, and ABC and Marvel have rights to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and all of the characters.

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><p><em>And you're more than that, Jemma.<em>

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><p>Jemma Simmons sat in her bunk, legs neatly crossed beneath her as her fingertips traced absentminded patterns into the sheets. She had been struggling with her conflicted thoughts for nearly two weeks now, and she was bloody tired of dancing across the line of where she stood. If she wanted to achieve the ability to think clearly again, she would need to sift through these thoughts and decide upon what she believed in and accepted, and it probably wouldn't be a very pleasant process.<p>

The first thing she began to evaluate was when she had kissed Ward. They had both been rather emotionally vulnerable at the time, and she had been drunker than she had been in years, and it might have destroyed any hope they had at repairing their relationship, even if it was in immensely small increments. Jemma felt the guilt of kissing the man who nearly killed her best friend drag her down daily, but it had lessened some after she heard Fitz talk about Ward's potential redemption. Maybe he would be able to forgive her for that if she could ever find the courage to tell him, but that didn't change the fact that he had been the first person she had kissed in years and wasn't the man she had wanted to kiss… though she quickly shuffled onto a different topic at that thought, still unprepared to face it.

Her thoughts then flickered to Skye. Jemma could never express how grateful she was to the hacker for supporting her throughout Fitz's absence, and she owed so much to her. Without Skye and the direction she gave Simmons, she probably would have plummeted into a pit of aimlessness and suffering. Skye talked her through the difficult times, the times where she felt lonelier than she ever had before and times when she was convinced Fitz would never wake up, and let her simply cry on her shoulder when Jemma needed that. She had also helped Simmons overcome some of her guilt regarding Ward, even if she didn't recognize it at the time, by kissing Jemma and reassuring her that it was just a kiss and that it doesn't have any weight over her unless she allows it to have weight. However, that kiss made her realize that she had kissed a third of Coulson's team and none of the kisses were with the person who she potentially had strong feelings for.

That thought brought her mind back around to Fitz, a subject she knew she could only avoid for so long. Ever since the Academy, it seemed as though their lives had become hopelessly entwined. You couldn't have one without the other, hence the nickname Fitzsimmons, and everybody seemed to accept that, even if they did get some confused looks when they assured others that they were not a couple. However, it seemed as though that had the slightest potential to change given his underwater confession, something she had refused to even allow to cross her mind while Fitz had been in a coma. He had told her she was more than a friend. It wasn't a love confession or a proposal to shift the definition of their relationship, but it meant that he returned some of the not-so-platonic moments she had struggled with after they had become close, and that is what gave it so much weight. Admitting, even to herself, that she felt the same way meant that they might alter their friendship into something romantic, and though Jemma was not exactly opposed to change, she knew that the wrong decision could shatter their friendship, something she could never risk. Nothing had more value to her than the unique relationship she shared with her partner, her other half. Despite the reluctance, she couldn't quite deny the growing affections any longer. Jemma oftentimes found herself gazing at him for several seconds too long, cheeks flushing from even the slightest amount of contact, and mind wandering into rather dangerous territory much too often. Some repressed portion of herself discovered the ability to whisper thoughts about running her fingers through his curls, taking his hand in his, pressing a kiss to his lips, and that was something she could no longer try to suffocate. It meant that she felt something beyond friendship, and though it may have been going on for quite some time, she was only now willing to confess it to herself.

It wasn't as though anything would change between them, regardless of how she felt. Jemma was now able to appreciate how difficult it must have been for him to admit his feelings for her while they were underwater. Though the emotions were there, the corresponding words simply could not come. It likely meant that they would continue to dance around the subject for quite a while longer, possibly for the remainder of their lives, and though she longed to confront it, there was nothing within her that had the ability to do so… meaning they would continue to dance, to brush against the line that separated their friendship from the potential to be more, to skim against the boundaries that neither of them had consciously established.

With that final realization, Simmons got up and left her bunk, unsure of where she was headed but not willing to be left alone with her less conflicted but still incredibly confusing thoughts.

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><p><strong>Author's Note: <strong>Thanks for reading! There may be another roleplay-oriented fanfic in the future, but I am not sure yet. Anyways, please leave a review if you have a moment to spare!

~NN


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